Does Philosophy Pay?

Some interesting statistics from the WSJ on the economic advantages of earning a liberal arts degree, such as in philosophy. The payoff, although delayed for the first few years, is substantial compared to other majors over a twenty-year period: a median annual earnings of $97K for philosophy majors (see the chart in the article, ‘How Pay Stacks Up’).

‘“I love hiring liberal-arts graduates,” says Dave Elkington, founder and chief executive of InsideSales.com, a Provo, Utah, company specializing in customer-data analysis. “They think broadly and communicate effectively. They aren’t stuck in a rut. They can challenge ideas.” Mr. Elkington, a philosophy major himself, says he came up with a lot of the ideas for his company’s analytic tools by reflecting on Aristotle’s classifications of knowledge.’